Odesa wine available in Britain (12/21/97)

Odesa wine available in Britain

by Tony Leliw

LONDON - Christmas revelers this year will be whetting their palates with Ukrainian table wine.

Odessos Steppe, a dry white wine that also comes in a red, is currently available in the British supermarket giant Tesco.

David Broadbent, chief executive of Premium Brand Corp., said: "To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that table wine from Ukraine has been sold in England, and certainly it is the first sale of wine from the Odesa region.

"I think that in the past there may have been some small sales of fizzy wine from Crimea, but not on a national basis."

Mr. Broadbent said his company had been exploring the possibility of introducing wines from Ukraine into the United Kingdom market for several years and they finally found a winery earlier this year from which they were able to "select a small range of wines that were of suitable quality for the U.K."

He added, "With the support of Tesco, which had expressed an interest in new wine-producing areas, we were able to make the first shipments in May."

Odessos Steppe (Suhii Lamanski & Aligote) is sold for less than 3 pounds ($5 U.S.) and appears to be geared toward the less expensive end of the wine market. Its distinct Ukrainian appearance includes a label dotted with small yellow tryzubs on a dark-green-blue label.

The label on the back of the bottle describes the ancient Greek settlement of Odessos, which gave its name to the Odessa region of Ukraine. "Stretching north from the Black Sea, this is part of the immense, fertile steppe - an area rich in vineyards, orchards and prairie-like pasture," it reads.

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